Wittgenstein at War
newstatesman.com
newstatesman.com
That does seem almost shocking. How does that even work? I would have thought that if an active service military personnel tried to mail something from the front to an enemy country, it would surely be intercepted and thoroughly examined and/or stopped. Would each side send letters through some mutual acquaintance in some neutral country? Did the Austo-Hungarians not have censors on military communication? Did the already alienated author of so many numbered cryptic statements ever fear he would be investigated as a spy?
"letters from and to POWs were usually sent through non-belligerent countries and humanitarian organizations such as Switzerland or the International Red Cross"
I would add Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor's "Meditations" were probably largely written at Sirmium, where he spent much time planning military campaigns from 170 to 180. Not quite the same thing, but related.
It's easy to see how Witgenstein could fit into midcentury British academia. This attitude is echoed by Eric Blair.
He's famous as a writer (under the name George Orwell) focused on the suffering of the lower classes, yet he explicitly despised the choices of the unfortunate. His writing on his time in Burma is correctly recognised as fundamentally anti-colonialist, yet his contempt for the colonized is just as clear (but not discussed). In Wigan Pier it's not just the workers but the socialists he scorns (sure, I agree the Fabians were useless, but he sneeringly refers to them as 'sandal-wearing vegetarians.') And his most famous book, 1984, he despairs the placidity and fecklessness of the proletariat.
Where are the nice people who are also influential?
Military service can really force you out of your bubble: All my friends chose to do civil service instead or were unfit for duty. The other conscripts were very different from me and I never before or after in my life felt so alienated from the people around me.
Just one example: From the environment I grew up in, I though that it was natural that women could be leaders, until then I thought that sexism would be a subtle thing, mostly of implicit, hidden biases. I was shocked to hear how my fellow soldiers talked about the one female sergeant. They made fun of her behind her back (even though she was a hypercompetent badass, for example sneaking through the forest mock killing all the guards during a training exercise), talked about how they could never respect her, because she was a woman, fantasised together about going up to her room to have rough sex with her….
I really did not like them as persons, I did not want to be friends with any of them and I generally hated spending time with them (playing football together was still fun though). Maybe I was arrogant, too?
I don’t know, it’s kinda fun to accuse Wittgenstein of arrogance from the comfort of ones chair, surrounded by ones bubble of similar-minded people, while imagining how one would be friends with the proletariat one never meets - but I kinda believe Wittgenstein, when he called his fellow soldiers bigoted. I can feel with him, trying to do his best in a horrible, scary situation, praying to be brave, while being surrounded by people he really does not like and there are worse things than complaining a bit in your diary in a situation like this.
I wouldn't recommend taking this article, and specifically this quote, as a suitable basis for saying Wittgenstein wasn't a good or nice person. He was a tremendously complicated person. The biography by Ray Monk paints a much fuller, more nuanced portrait.
https://www.cantorsparadise.com/when-alan-turing-and-ludwig-...